| “my dearest partner of greatness” | Lady Macbeth is seen as an ally more than a wife and this shows that she obtains some power in their relationship |
| “thou woulds’t be great, art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it” | Lady Macbeth sees the weakness in her husband and feels he is too soft to carry out his ambitious plans |
| “I fear thy nature is too full o’h’milk of human kindness…” | Lady Macbeth sees Macbeth as too childish to execute his plans |
| “… would have inform’d for preparation” | she is hasty in her decision to kill Duncan |
| “unsex me here…” | conversing with evil spirits to make her more ruthless and sees her felinity as a hinderance to her ambition |
| “the future in the instant” | Lady Macbeth is ambitious and wants to make Macbeth King now |
| “Look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t” | Serpent was a national symbol of evil from the Bible (devil) and represents Shakespeare’s theme of deception |
| “Give me the daggers” | shows no remorse about the deed she just committed which exhibits her ruthlessness |
| “Go get some water” | thinks that a physical cleansing will cleanse her conscience and she still remains in control |
| “I shame to wear a heart so white” | she sees Macbeth as a coward |
| “You must leave this” | Lady Macbeth doesn’t understand why Macbeth is lingering on this this thought |
| “speak not … go at once” | Lady Macbeth tells the Lords to leave which shows she is powerful and in control |
| “fill me from the crown…” | every conversation and thought is obsessed with royalty |
| “LADY MACBETH SLEEP-WALKING” | Her troubled sleep shows her troubled state of mind |
| “Out, damned spot” | Spoken in prose which is the speech of common people and she is trying to get it off her hands |
| “To bed … come your hand… to bed” | Broken frame of mind shown by broken speech |
| “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” | Same as Macbeth at the start (“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this bloodClean from my hand”) |
| “The queen … is dead” | Her demise eventually led to her committing suicide and becomes weak |
| “Fiend-like queen” | Malcolm’s final judgement is that Lady Macbeth is was a fiend or devil |
| “Screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail” | Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband |
| “I would … have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums” | Lady Macbeth is ruthless enough to kill her child for Macbeth |
| “What beast was’t then that made you break this enterprise to me” | Lady Macbeth says Macbeth is betraying her and she is trying to emasculate him |
| “make thick my blood, stop up th’access and passage to remorse” | She wants to stop her conscious and doesn’t want right and wrong to stop her |
| “Under my battlements” | Talks about her house like a war zone which represents Shakespeare’s theme of powerful women in the play |
Lady Macbeth character quotes
August 10, 2019